Live and Die and Live Again
by Cordite Quill
Summary: Nux's manifest destiny must not be complete, because he wakes on Fury Road badly injured but alive. He has a choice to make. Is he mediocre or historic? (Rated for language.)


**Author's Note:** I did not expect to like _Mad Max: Fury Road_ as much as I did. I also did not expect to walk away with one of the worst 'ships I've had since Buffy/Spike or...well, if you've seen my other stories, you know who my number one 'ship is. Anyway, the ending of the movie was so bittersweet I couldn't take it. It needed just one more thing...one addition...

This is my effort at making my poor heart feel better.

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 **Live and Die and Live Again**

The Immortan guaranteed a war boy like me a glorious death on the Fury Road. Guaranteed me Valhalla. His words once pierced through me, hot like Slit's lance. Those words, that need, that _drive_ would explode in my belly; kept me going.

I ain't the smartest war boy, ain't the healthiest, ain't the best. But I believed fierce. Valhalla was everything chrome and shiny. I dreamed of that place, put my faith into it. It kept me going through night fevers and when Larry and Barry pushed against my windpipe and whispered in my ear.

Who cared about half life when there was Valhalla?

I ain't got shit now.

Ain't got Valhalla, ain't got my health, ain't got a wheel to drive.

And yet...can I say I lived, I died, and I live again?

" _Manifest destiny,"_ her voice whispers in my mind, sweet like Aqua Cola. Cooling the fire in my insides; even calming Larry and Barry for a bit.

There's sand in my mouth and the wind in my ear.

Whatever manifest destiny this is, it's a sure, fucking long road.

I feel like I died, cause I ache. I ain't ached like this. It takes me a long while to move, and at first I don't think I can do it. I'm afraid I'll die here, which definitely isn't how I wanted to go. If I was gonna die, I'd want to die on my terms. I'd whispered the words, my lips forming the chant, _"Witness me."_ Yes, so I could be in Valhalla. Maybe Immortan Joe wasn't there; maybe it was a place without war and fighting. The Wives thought so, they said it was _peaceful._ I didn't care about peace, but I didn't want my death to be meaningless. I didn't want it to be _alone_.

I saw her face as she raced away from me, saw the pain in her eyes and knew I'd made the right choice.

What kind of manifest destiny would have me survive _that_ to slowly become vulture food out on the sands of Fury Road?

So I wait, feeling that burn in my belly. _Life_. Larry and Barry want me to lie still and die soft. Just wink out, like a candle. Let the wind take my last breath and the sand bury me real deep and soft.

Fuck that.

I finally move my hand. A little move, but it was _something_. Feel hot sand shift on my body. Takes me a real long while to manage another move, another flop of my hand, but then I feel the wind on its back and I want to crow with victory. Right! This war boy ain't soft yet!

I don't know how long it finally takes me to lift my head from the sandy dune I've become, but when I do I feel the sun on the back of my eyelids and breathe sweet, hot air. Fury Road air.

With a whimpering groan, feeling pain in all my bits and pieces, from fingertip to toe, I finally manage to roll onto my back.

I can't manage more for a while.

I think the pain makes me pass out, 'cause I dream of that glorious last ride on the War Rig. It's wheel under my hand had been chrome. It reacted to every move I made, like a beast I'd tamed.

 _What a lovely day, what a lovely day…_

I wake to those words on my lips. To that burn in my belly. Lovely day, how many days like that can one war boy get? A part of me wishes - oh how I wish - to have that shiny wheel under my hands once again. To feel the exhilaration of the Fury Road, and all those war boys around us. To look into Immortan Joe's eye one more time, but this time, I'd know I could even outdrive _him_.

I'd've howled my victory to the sun if I could have, but instead I just wheeze and smile.

And then she came back to me. I can see her behind my eyelids. She always came back. She was so soft, made me like soft, even though I shouldn't. _A war boy can't be soft…_

I imagine her just over the sand dune, looking back at me, waiting. Her hair would be braided and glowing like fire. She confuses me. Her eyes were hard, but she was soft. Said soft things, whispered them in my ear and made me want them. Her lips were soft, but her words hard. They made sense. At first, I didn't like that. That burn in my belly got hotter around her, and Larry and Barry liked to make jokes. Tell me I'm just a stupid war boy hoping for a slice of Valhalla before I was dead. Hoping for a soft touch from a Wife.

 _Not Wife anymore,_ I remind myself. I remember the way she'd look at me. Her hard eyes got shiny. She could stare into me in a way only Immortan Joe did before. She _looked_ at me. A war boy. She _witnessed_ me.

And what do I do? Throw that away. V8, but why am I not dead?

"Manifest destiny," I whisper, but it comes out more like a wheezy croak, full of sandy grit and dry desert air. I ain't even half life right now. Quarter life, if I'm lucky. Gotta get back on my feet.

Action is best. War boys know action and energy. Gotta keep the engines going, gotta drink from the guzzolene of life. Ain't got a blood bag now, but I got the fire in my belly. I slowly, inch by inch, manage to sit up. V8, it hurts! It hurts worse than fighting in the war pits; hurts worse than a kick to the gut; hurts worse than the night fevers!

Something's broken, I know that from the pain lancing through my ribs and leg. I think of poking around, see if the pain'll tell me where I got hit bad, but what's the point? Either I'm gonna get up or I ain't.

So, I ignore the pain. I ignore the taste of blood in my mouth. I ignore the swollen finger on my hand, or the way it's all twisted sideways. I ain't gonna be pointing any time soon, unless I wanna point sideways.

I don't know if I can stand. Pain in the ribs and leg is _bad_. But, I manage to cling to the wreck around me and crawl my way up to my feet, like a bug on a wall. If I keep most my weight on my left leg, I can manage to stay standing, although I weave like a sand devil.

I lean my forehead against twisted metal and the heat is almost unbearable. Been baking in the sun, just like me. I take shallow, deep breaths until the pain is an afterthought I can ignore.

Then, I open my eyes.

Dear V8! It is bright! Stings my eyeballs, makes precious water well. I breathe harsh, feeling the burn in my lungs and pain in my ribs, waiting to adjust. Hot metal under my cheek.

Finally, I push away from the wreck and survey my surroundings. This was the historic last moments of my life (or so I thought at the time), of the lives of many war boys; the last moments of Immortan Joe and those most loyal. I feel a twinge about killing those like me. Maybe if they had been in my place, they would have chosen Furiosa and the Wives' Green Place, too. I feel a twinge at killing Immortan Joe, as well. Despite what the Wives insisted, I still could feel the heat of his gaze, as if he burned with the combustion fires of the V8 itself. Immortan Joe had been all I knew for so long; even now the thought he _wasn't_ a god sat heavy and strange, like a rock in my mind.

" _Mediocre,"_ he had muttered to me, and I had wanted to die. Not die in the glory of Fury Road, but simply fizzle out like so much dead engine.

 _Who was mediocre now?_ I wanted to yell as I survey the wreckage. Twisted metal everywhere. The Rig is scrap now, burnt black in places and gouged to hell. How had I survived that? Didn't seem possible. When the War Rig had tipped, I had tried to stay attached to the wheel. I'd gripped it tight, but the impact had jettisoned me out through some window or maybe the windshield. I wonder what my face looks like now. I can feel soft places, painful places, along my scalp where the wind and the sand touch things that are raw. But I discard the thought. War boys wear their wounds and scars with pride.

The pride chokes me, quiets Larry and Barry, makes me forget the pain. _I_ did this. _I_ wrecked on Fury Road. _I_ made it so that they couldn't follow and the Wives were free to head back to the Citadel. _I did. Me. Mediocre Nux, the half life past his prime._

 _The Citadel._ I turn in its direction, hesitate. Were the Wives there now? And Furiosa and Blood Bag? Did they survive?

I whimper as pain lances through my side. Walking is going to be awful. And then a thought pierces through my brain, hot and unwelcome: _What if by surviving she'd think I was mediocre?_

I'd had a warrior's death, the one thing a war boy wanted. I'd given her Hope; she had witnessed by death. To come back, to stand before the Citadel gates and say I had survived...where was the glory in that? Would she look at me with those hard eyes and they'd be cold?

War boys died and lived again in Valhalla. Not died and came back injured, weak, and walking away from Fury Road.

But even as I think it, I dismiss it. She'd never seemed happy with the belief, had definitely scoffed at anything Immortan Joe had said. So then did I want to limp back to a changed world? Where did I fit into _that_? Would there still be war boys allowed the glory of Fury Road? Could I still drive, feel chrome under my hands and on my tongue?

 _Did it matter?_

No, it didn't, because she is there. And when she'd looked at me all soft, I had transformed. I was lifted out of the mediocre Immortan Joe had called me and into something more - something worthwhile. She had put faith in me; they had all trusted me. I had driven the War Rig by their allowance. I had felt Hope because of them all. I had been part of that.

I say her name then, soft-like as if I am at the altar of the V8. "Capable." Her name is snatched from my scarred lips and carried away on the wind. Shiny name, perfect name. Capable. Full of soft and hard, with hair like fire and eyes like the Green Place must have been.

I remember what she'd said to me, the night we talked about stars and satellites. Glory! She had been warm and lovely, leaning against my side. Under the darkness and the stars, I'd had the courage to ask her, "Why did you run away from Immortan Joe?"

And when she'd stiffened, I quickly continued, "You lived in favor. You had the best. Why leave it all behind?"

She was still stiff, her mouth twisted down, and I had feared she'd hate me. That I'd messed it all up, me and my big mouth. But she didn't move away, just stayed stiff and unhappy for a long time - or it felt like a long time - and then finally had said, with a sigh, "It didn't matter."

"Why not?" I think I'd put up with a lot for unlimited food and Aqua Cola, and Immortan Joe's favor.

"There was no Choice, Nux," she had said, and the way she said "Choice," I could hear the big letter in the front. "Can you understand? Choice means everything. Even you have Choice. The choice to die historic, right? The choice to follow the ways of the V8. Choice to come and go. Choice to sleep unharmed and say 'no' if you want."

I couldn't understand it then - I can't really understand it now. But I could understand my desire for historic death, and if that was Choice, then yes, I could understand wanting it. I'd choose it over and over in my wretched half life.

She hadn't stopped, though, and had suddenly turned to me so she looked me straight in the eye. "When I found you, you were wretched. But you Chose to help us instead of stay a wretched war boy, right? That was what you _wanted,_ what you _Chose_. I want the same kind of freedom, Nux. Choice to come and go as I please, to be wretched if I want - or happy. The Choice to hope. To sleep easy."

Sleeping easy seemed a weird thing to want. After all, sleep was just a way to prepare for dying historic, and maybe if you were lucky, dream about Valhalla. But I had tried to think of it from a Wife point of view. And I suppose, if I was kept locked up away from my war car and told what to do and where to go, I'd be unhappy too.

"I want you to have Choice," I had said, and I'd meant it from the very bottom of my mediocre war boy heart. I'd've fought all kinds of things to make sure Capable had what she wanted most. That realization had surprised me at the time, because until that moment, the only other person I'd ever felt like that for had been Immortan Joe.

She had smiled, relaxed back against me, her warmth like a blanket. She had said, "I'm glad, war boy," and had moved a little so she could look me in the eye. "I'm glad you chose a different manifest destiny than dying historic." And then she had leaned up and kissed me on the cheek, long enough that I could feel her soft lips and warm breath, before she had resettled back against my side with a small, satisfied smile.

My heart had lurched and I'd smiled like a fool up at the stars. Wondered if any satellite's strange, old show could compare with this moment. Wished the night wouldn't end.

Now, half-buried in remembering, I take a few shaky steps. My bum leg drags through the sand and I heavily favor the other one. I walk slow and half-dead, but I walk.

 _Choice,_ she'd said. Choice was the most important thing.

I glance back at the wreckage and thread my fingers together, lifting the sign of the V8 above my head and whisper a prayer for all who had fallen before me, then finish with: "By my deeds, I live, I die, and I live again."

Then I turn and left it behind: the War Rig and all those war boys who hadn't had a chance to Choose.

I'm Nux, the mediocre half life war boy who Chose. I walk the Fury Road back to the Citadel, back to her.

Back home.

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 **Author's End Note:** This may serve as a prologue for something in the future, but right now it's a standalone. Also, first person present POV is much more difficult than I anticipated! Hope I did it justice. Please **comment/review,** let me know what you think!


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